Strange Brew
by Daisy Miller
Summary: Not that it mattered really, because he was drunk, and she was drunk, and nothing mattered when you were drunk. HouseCameron
1. Mad

_Disclaimer for this and all following chapters: I don't own House and the title was taken from the song "Strange Brew," written by Eric Clapton and originally preformed by Cream. All quotes at the beginning of the chapters are from the song, as well.

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"Strange Brew"

Part One (of Three)

_Mad_

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In her own mad mind she's in love with you . . . Now what you gonna do?_

_-Eric Clapton_

He sometimes had the idea that she was just anatomical dead space. The cavity where his words would linger, never making it to the place where they would mean something or carry any weight in her decisions.

They had no political pull. They'd just bounce around, like a verbal pinball machine. Ten points if you make it through the asteroids.

To him, he was the tree and his remarks were oxygen. Cameron must be suffocating by now.

Some people call that stubborn.

He called it stupidity.

Not the "can't add two and two" stupidity; that was the lesser of two evils. No, the pinnacle of baseness was the "I listen to my heart" stupidity.

When would people learn: the heart didn't have eyes. It couldn't see what was going on. Your head had the eyes for a reason: you were supposed to use it. The heart isn't even the source of emotions. Your frontal and prefrontal lobes were in charge of all that stuff: the decision making, planning, conceptualizing, regret, morality, empathy . . . .

He tried to remind her of this one day. Not in so many words, of course. All he really said was "Shut up and do what I tell you."

But it was basically the same thing. Because he was using his head and Cameron's incessant prattling was coming from her bleeding heart. He figured she might not be able to use her head effectively, due to some physical shortcoming–her wiring was faulty or something–and he was resigned to let her use his.

Besides, his looked better. If you squinted.

If only she'd stop preaching ethics to him in that stern voice, as if she was a trying to reprimand him for walking across the street without looking both ways. It was starting to give him a headache.

_She_ was starting to give him a headache. Standing there, leaning over his desk, her hands placed firmly on the glass surface . . . . Getting her fingerprints everywhere. She was interrupting _General Hospital_ to tell him that what he was doing was wrong. _Immoral_.

"That shirt is immoral," he told her, his eyes flicking quickly to her breasts and then back to the television screen.

She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, which did not help the problem in the least. It aided it remarkably.

He sometimes wished he had hired a less attractive immunologist.

"House . . ." she began again.

"What?"

The look in her green eyes was unusually sad. Kind of annoyed and a little desperate, like a little kid who wants her mommy. She looked . . . _needy_. And he needed her to leave him alone.

Maybe alcohol would drown her out, he thought, admitting defeat by flicking the television off . . . .

Alcohol is, in fact, a widely popular type of beverage. Often the choice of young college students (and ever-increasingly of high school students, as well), alcohol can lead to distorted vision, hearing, and coordination, altered perceptions and emotions, impaired judgment, bad breath, and hangovers. The long-term effects of alcohol consumption include loss of appetite, vitamin deficiencies, stomach ailments, skin problems, sexual impotence, liver damage, heart and central nervous system damage, and memory loss. This is probably why many adults were idiots.

House knew all of this, but for some reason he couldn't remember any of it.

Perhaps this was because he was drunk.

Allison Cameron also knew the effects of alcohol consumption, but she, too, could not remember any of the specifics.

This was probably because she drunk as well.

Neither could remember how they had gotten into this situation, her slouched across the bar, him leaning back in his chair, both laughing about something that was not funny. Cameron remembered House telling her that her shirt was immoral and House remembered looking down Cameron's immoral shirt.

There was a vague notion that House had been the one to suggest they go get a drink, but there was no remembrance of his intentions. He knew it wasn't because he wanted to spend some quality time with his employee. Maybe he just wanted to spend some quality time with his employee's cleavage? That was always possible.

After all, House didn't get many chances to get laid for free.

Although, judging by the devious glint that had appeared in Cameron's eyes a few minutes ago, maybe he _would_ have to pay. If only he could remember where his wallet was.

_Maybe the reason he was so mean was he didn't get laid enough?_

This was Cameron's thought as she watched him laugh at some horribly witty one-liner he gave to the bartender when asked if he wanted another drink.

"House, I think you actually kinda like me," she said, pointing to his face. "You just don't want to admit it."

"You got me," he said, with a drunken smile and downed another glass of whiskey. They broke into a fit of laughter, and the bartender rolled his eyes. "But what you don't get," he continued, "is my cane."

He thought briefly on what he just said.

"Or maybe it was my pants . . . ?"

"We have to work in the morning," said Cameron. Her voice sounded curiously clear, and she began to think that she wasn't really as drunk as she had originally assumed.

But then she stood up, and the room swam around her in a flurry of neon brilliance. She clutched House's shoulder and rested her other hand on his chest.

"Come on," he said, throwing some money down on the counter.

For some reason he couldn't remember where he lived, but he could remember where she lived. He drove her home, racking his brain for his address and avoiding running into any street lamps or innocent bystanders. Not that he really cared about the innocent bystanders. It was the streetlights you had to worry about because they actually hit back. Honestly, if the innocent bystanders were stupid enough to stand in the way of a car careening down the street, then they probably deserved to be hit.

If Cameron could read his mind, she'd tell him he was immoral.

Getting out of the car, he leaned heavily on his cane and watched Cameron stumble out of the passenger side.

"Oops," she said, when her foot got caught on the seatbelt. "You gotta . . . gotta . . . yeah."

She stood unsteadily in front of House, her blouse disheveled and her skirt wrinkled. She brushed her bangs out of her eyes, so that she could see him better and found his eyes to look like little pools of crystal clear water. She could see to the bottom and what she saw both scared and confused her.

She saw rocks. Craggy and sharp with waves of the ocean breaking across them in a constant battle: the waves always trying to get free and the rocks always stopping them. A barricade keeping his emotions in. She remembered Wilson telling her that he might not open up to anyone if she broke his heart. This is what he wouldn't open up--his labyrinth of stone. Impenetrable with an ever-winding maze of sarcasm and sexual innuendos. She wasn't sure she could find the center of it, even if she did try.

But as we have already established, Allison Cameron was stubborn. A ray of persistence will always burst through doubt, like a painful signal of morning through a half closed curtain after a night of binge drinking. She found herself wondering what the journey would be like.

It certainly wouldn't be easy; it would undeniably be rough, swimming through the ocean during a tempest, wind-tossed and chocking on salt water. Although, even if she did take a wrong turn and found herself impaled by the sharp spire of a large boulder, she'd still have the way his eyes looked at her just then--the way they actually looked soft and nearly caring.

In actuality, they were unfocused, but Cameron couldn't tell that because her eyesight was a little blurry too.

"House," she started, but instantly forgot what she had been about to say. She decided to kiss him instead. After all, she needed to do something with her open mouth. Her aim was a little off, however, and she ended up kissing his unshaven jaw.

"You're drunk," he said.

"So are you."

Yeah, he was. But he wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or her hand on his hip.

He hoped it was the alcohol.

Not that it mattered really, because he was drunk, and she was drunk, and nothing mattered when you were drunk.

Which is why he woke up with a pounding headache and an unfamiliar warmth pressing into his side. The sheets were different too༠softer and more girly. Some nauseating floral print that made his eyes hurt. Or maybe that was the pain _behind_ his eyes?

He looked to his side at Cameron stirring awake, disrupted by the movement he made by sitting up. The brain takes less than a second to send a signal somewhere, and it only took him a tenth of a second to decide he didn't want to think about Cameron lying there, undressed, her hair falling softly over the pale curve of her shoulder . . . .

Coffee was a much more appealing thought at that moment.

He was pouring himself a cup when Cameron wandered into the kitchen, fully dressed and looking like her head was pounding just as much as House's. Her eyes were hidden from him as she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. She had been sitting on her bed for the past few minutes, wondering why she wasn't nervous or feeling guilty or embarrassed. She decided it must be an aftereffect caused by the endorphins that were often released during exercise. And sex, while not recommended for recreational purposes, was a type of physical exercise. She felt calm and, as cliché as it sounds, satisfied. She felt strangely content. So she dressed quickly and found House sitting in her kitchen, looking like he hadn't slept in days.

"Did we . . .?" she asked.

"What do you think?" He wanted to say something more scathing--something that would dissociate him from this awkward situation--but his head was hurting too much for him to think properly.

"We need to talk about this," she continued. It almost seems paradoxical to be stubborn and pragmatic, but there she was. Always thinking rationally. That was one reason why he liked her: she did what she thought was right. Her only failing was that what was commonly right was what House had told her to do in the first place.

"No," he said. "because nothing happened."

"But House . . . ."

"No."

Denial is a psychological defense mechanism that is easily verifiable and most easily defined as: pretend this never happened, and it never did. Which would have worked wonderfully if she didn't remember everything.

His hands, his mouth, his eyes . . . _him_. It was all there in her brain, with surprising clarity.

She didn't think she could ever forget it. But she figured she couldn't deny his right to ignore it. God, she probably seduced him. Just like Chase. Way to make a reputation for yourself, Cameron., you saucy minx. Insist you are a qualified doctor, try your hardest not to be judged by your looks, and then sleep with your boss. Perfect way to get to the top.

"So that's it?" She held her cup in both hands, hoping he didn't see the redness in her cheeks. It wasn't that she was finally embarrassed for sleeping with House; it was that she really wouldn't mind doing it again.

"Yep," he said, getting up. He left his dirty mug in the sink and left.

TBC

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_A/N: All comments are appreciated! Thank you for reading._**  
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	2. Glue

"Strange Brew"

Part Two

Glue

_She's some kind of demon messing in the glue. If you don't watch out it'll stick to you . . .What kind of fool are you?_

-Eric Clapton

When Dr. House entered his office, he was aware of two very important things: one, his head was pounding terribly, like a rave was going on in his temporal lobe, and two, a pot of coffee was brewing.

As he walked towards the coffee pot, he involuntarily took note of the table where his employees sat. It was a habit to him, to just casually look over at the large glass table as he walked passed it. It was one of the largest things in the room and was obtrusively in his line of sight. Foreman was eating a bowl of cereal and Chase was focused intently on a crossword puzzle, his pen clenched in between his teeth.

House almost expected Cameron to hand him a cup of coffee and take a seat in between Foreman and Chase, but Cameron was nowhere to be seen. Her bag was there, though, propped against the leg of a chair, and her jacket was slung across the back of the chair. It was a very normal thing for her to do, sit her bag down, throw her jacket across the chair, make a pot of coffee, hand him a cup . . . .

She was probably avoiding him.

He supposed he probably should have acted a little more sensitive to their predicament. Although they had both been drunk, his alcohol consumption had been considerably less than hers. Judging by the pain in his head, he had been quite drunk, which meant that she must have been smashed. She probably felt used, like he had taken advantage of her. She probably didn't remember throwing herself at him, kissing him, taking off his shirt. She probably didn't even remember him suggesting they go get a drink in the first place.

The rave in his temporal lobe suddenly got busted and pandemonium ensued as the guests tried to get away from the cops. The pounding in his head scattered about, trying to find an escape. He massaged his temple and poured himself a cup of coffee. He took a large gulp despite the inevitable burn . . . and then gagged when he realized it tasted horrible.

He looked down at his mug. It was the same mug he had used for the past year or so. It looked clean and sparkly red. He took another sip, thinking maybe it had just been his imagination, and immediately spit it back out, disgusted by the stale taste.

"Who made this?" he asked, holding the offending beverage away from him.

"Chase did," said Foreman, taking bite of his cereal.

"Why didn't Cameron make it?"

"Because Cameron has clinic duty," said Chase, looking up from his crossword puzzle. He crossed off 5 Down with a satisfied smile and started working on 12 Across.

House sighed and placed his mug down.

There are two accepted definitions of the word "addiction." Some within the medical profession insist that it only applies to an escalating drug or alcohol use as a result of repeated exposure. However, the term "addiction" is also habitually applied to compulsive behaviors, such as gambling. In all cases, though, addiction describes a chronic pattern of behavior that continues despite the adverse affects of engaging in such activity.

Like eating that chocolate cake even though you're twenty pounds overweight.

As a doctor and a Vicodin addict, House was well aware of what addiction was. Nevertheless, he was slightly surprised and perturbed to discover a new addiction he had.

An addiction to coffee.

He was surprised because he had never really thought he was reliant on caffeine before. As he was walking towards the clinic, the thought of making his way to Wilson's office, talking him into buying a cup of coffee, and then stealing it entered his mind.

But for some reason it just wasn't appealing. It made him feel bored and little annoyed.

The realization that Cameron's coffee was always better than the hospital cafeteria's coffee and that he really didn't want to settle for _theirs_ when he could have _hers_, was what perturbed him.

A more adjusted person would have sat and pondered on this new finding and its implications. A person more in touch with his emotions would have probably come to conclusion that the coffee was just a symbol for his reliance on Cameron herself–a reliance that could probably culminate into an attachment, and possibly escalate into something that could be called a "romantic interest." A desire to get in her pants.

Since House was not a well-adjusted person and generally only touched his emotions with a ten foot stick, he decided to focus on the simple fact that Cameron's coffee just tasted better.

Besides, he'd already slept with her once, so he was exempt from thinking about things too much.

He arrived in the clinic as quietly as a man with a cane can arrive anywhere, and quickly discovered that she was in examination room three. He opened the door without knocking.

"Why didn't you make the coffee this morning?" he asked, looking down at her.

She was sitting in the chair, one leg crossed professionally over the other. Her hair was pulled back from her face, her bangs pushed to the side. Her eyes looked dark and tired. A pen was poised in her hand, and she took a deep breath before setting it down. She turned to him, looking calm, as if she had expected him to come looking for his morning coffee.

For a minute, he felt a twinge of something in his chest. Guilt for interrupting her, perhaps, although that was highly unlikely. Or maybe even a remembrance of the night before. He thought it was probably because he couldn't bring himself to simply _forget_ the night before.

He may not have been thinking about it directly–it wasn't like he was reliving it– but it was there, dancing around in the back of his brain, having a great time at that rave.

Her lips, and cheap beer. Her skin in the dark and her sloppy drunken kisses, _his _sloppy drunken kisses. Her hair had been soft and rested against his cheek and her hands, her hands on his shoulders—

It wasn't that he really secretly loved her. It was simply that it had been a good time. It was nice. It felt good. Like sticking your finger in an electrical socket when you were a kid. Your mother would tell you not do it, but of course you still would, because it felt good and because she had told you not to do it in the first place.

The sexual imagery of "sticking your finger in an electrical socket" was not lost on him. Most sexual imagery was not lost on him.

Cameron was forbidden territory, even if she wasn't working for him. Even if she was working for Yule at Jefferson, she would still be the older brother's bedroom with a big "Do Not Enter" sign on the door. The cookie before dinner. She was the popular table in the middle school lunchroom and he was sitting in the corner all by himself with a sarcastic remark on his lips and a bum leg.

She was something he wasn't supposed to _do_.

She only wanted him because she was needy and he was damaged. It was an illusion that she could fix him, bring him back to humanity and a better understanding of what love really is.

Dr. House was never really one to believe in romance. Sure, he could love; wasn't that what Stacy was? And yes, he could care about other people when he wanted to; he cared about Wilson . . . usually.

But Cameron would want roses and candy and sweet gestures that showed she was _his_. Hand-holding and little pecks on the cheek.

He couldn't do that. It was against his nature, against that rude and sarcastic barrier of his. His wall of rocks. Let that wall down and he'd drown.

"I have clinic duty," she answered.

"Yes, but why didn't you make it before clinic duty?"

His voice had that annoyed sound to it. The one he used when talking to a patient that kept lying. Kind of gravelly and sarcastic. The one that implies you're an idiot.

"I got here a little late."

Her words poked at the tension that was clearly between them but both were trying to ignore. She stood up and moved to the counter, grabbing her prescription pad and scribbling something down on it. His eyes followed her, capturing her movements like a camera.

His shutter speed was a little slow, and he somehow caught the slight sway of her hips in her sleek, black pants. It was an unintentional observation that he would normally comment on with all the abrasiveness he could muster. But now–now he was just trying to remember his denial tactic.

"Besides," she continued, "I don't remember making coffee being in my job description."

It wasn't the comeback she had been searching for, but it opened a window between them. A breath of hot summer air. Winter is over, it said.

"Well, I don't remember last night being in your job description either."

The patient shifted uncomfortably and the paper sheet underneath him rustled loudly.

Cameron dropped the pen. Her back was facing him, but he could see her hair falling down her back and her shoulders all clenched, like they had a patient almost dying and they weren't even close to figuring out _why_.

Maybe she was the one dying and she knew why.

He took a deep breath and said, "Just make the coffee when you get back up there."

When she turned around, he was gone, and her patient smiled nervously. "So what happened last night?"

She ignored his question and handed him the prescription. Mumbling off some directions, she left the room and found House just as he was entering the elevator.

She followed him and pushed the button. "I thought you said nothing happened last night."

He couldn't think of anything particularly witty to reply with, so he looked at the elevator door. "Everybody lies," he said, the familiar words sounding foreign to him for some reason. Like they had a new meaning now.

They didn't have a new meaning, though. They were just being applied to the wrong subject matter. They were applying to him and her.

"Look, something happened . . . ." she began to say, but the doors opened with a ding, and they had to get off.

She followed him into the conference room and silently made a fresh pot of coffee.

The rest of the day trailed on, riddled with little moments and secret glances. He would tell her what to do and she would do it. She'd make a comment and he would ignore it. He would walk into the Pathology lab and she would stand there, her back to him, refusing to turn around or tell him that the tests were not finished yet. She didn't contradict his diagnosis even though she thought he might be wrong. Foreman could do that well enough.

She just acted with maturity. Professionally. Distant. And it killed her.

"I can't do this one more day," she said that night, as he reluctantly let her into his house. "I can't work in an environment like that and we need to talk things through, come to an agreement."

"An agreement about what? Whether or not we had sex last night? 'Cause I can assure you, we did."

She crossed her arms over her chest, a sly smile on her face. "I thought you said we'd forget that. You keep bringing it up."

He averted his eyes and gripped his cane tighter, as if it were a life preserver. Hold it tight, don't let yourself forget who you are.

There was sharp knock on the door before he could respond. Wilson had invited himself over to watch a football game earlier that week.

"House?" he called.

"Just a minute."

House was on the verge of finding his stethoscope and making a big show of hanging it on the doorhandle, when Wilson just let himself in, like he lived there or something.

"I still have a key," called Wilson.

House waited, leaning heavily on his cane. He looked at Cameron briefly and saw that her cheeks were pink. Either she was embarrassed or she had worn blush that day. He knew for a fact that Cameron never wore blush.

He turned his attention back to Wilson . . . shutting the door . . . shifting the bag of potato chips from his right arm to his left . . . stuffing the keys back into his pocket . . . turning around . . . and . . .

"Oh." Wilson shifted his eyes between House and Cameron. "I didn't know you were going to be here, Allison," he said at length.

"Didn't you hear?" said House, making his way to the couch. "With that lousy pay I give her, she was forced to take a second job. Her specialty is a prostrate exam."

Wilson continued to look between House, sitting on his couch, and Cameron, her eyes focused on her shoes. Her lips were a thin line connecting her rosy cheeks and her arms were folded across her chest protectively.

House was calmly looking at Wilson, a small smirk on his face and his eyebrows raised. "I'll share her if you want some," he continued.

Wilson opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it and closed his mouth. "I better be going," he said. "I'll see you two tomorrow."

After Wilson closed the door behind him, Cameron took an uneasy step towards the couch.

"That was awkward," she said.

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

She sighed and took another step closer to him. "I . . . ."

Another deep breath and she was sitting next to him. It felt like a violation of his couch, her sitting there next to him, a comfortable warmth seeping into his side.

It felt kind of nice.

He shifted and said quietly, "What do you want me to do?"

For a minute, he thought she was going to tell him to kiss her. She looked up at him, her eyes shining in the low-light of the room and her lips parted.

"Nothing," she answered. "I don't want you to do anything."

Miss Stubborn reared her attractively annoying head, and now he just _had _to kiss her.

He leaned down, his eyes staring pointedly above her head and touched his lips to her temple. The kiss lingered for a second and then he straightened, his grip on his cane increasing in intensity.

Her posture stiffened. Her blood pressure increased. Her pupils dilated, arteries constricted. Her skin felt warm. And her hand, slowly, nervously, rested on his knee. She moved closer to him, turning her body to face him and placed her hand on his chest.

It was a night of strange consequence, a period of no thoughts and no guilt. There was no conscience to stray them away from each other and no awkwardness to cause any fumbling. There was no thought of "This is wrong," or "We should stop." There was only physical contact and the floating realization that neither one really wanted to live without this luxury of having another's body so close or being able to look in another's eyes and _see_.

She assumed that he had some sort of feelings for her. He made no effort to fight whatever advances she made towards him thus far and after the initial shock, he warmed up to her quite well. It was him who maneuvered them into his bedroom with remarkable ease, and it was him who removed her shirt expertly.

And yet, it was her who was lying awake, staring at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering what this meant. It's one thing to sleep with your boss while you're drunk, but doing it while you were sober was something completely different.

She wondered if she could blame it on him. _I was drunk on _him

She laughed lightly and turned on her side to look at him better. His chest rose and fell with each deep breath. She wondered if maybe she was hallucinating, like maybe he was just a figment of her imagination. Or maybe she was dreaming. She continued to stare at him until her eyelids faltered, and she fell asleep.

_tbc_

_A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews! The third part will be up soon. _


	3. Raging

**A/N:** Thank you to those who reviewed! _(housefic50 prompt 23: Lovers)_

"Strange Brew"

Part Three

Raging

_On a boat in the middle of a raging sea, she would make a scene for it all to be ignored. And wouldn't you be bored?_

-Eric Clapton

Childproof caps were one of the most useless contraptions ever created. They were right up there with pocket protectors and thank you notes.

Dr. House tried to twist the cap again, but it wouldn't budge. He twisted harder, suppressing a rather annoying grunt of effort, but the pill bottle remained closed.

He glanced over his shoulder at Cameron sleeping peacefully. She hadn't heard him trying to rescue his Vicodin, nor had she been disturbed by any shaking of the mattress, and he tried to keep it that way. He attempted to open the bottle once again, grimacing with effort, when suddenly the top popped off and the Vicodin went scurrying across the floor.

Strangely enough, a grunt and some movement of the mattress was not enough to wake Cameron up, but a few pills falling had her sitting up in an instant, pulling the sheet with her.

She caught a glimpse of annoyed blue eyes, as she grabbed one of his white collared shirts from its place on the floor and wrapped it around her. She was at his side in seconds, collecting little white pills from under his bed and pretending to be oblivious of the fact that he was naked.

It wasn't that she was embarrassed by his display of certain intimate areas—not after sex with the guy. She was embarrassed that she could see his scar. It felt like she was seeing something she wasn't supposed to see, like a kid watching an R-rated movie. "Mommy what's _that_?"

The bottle had been abandoned on the night stand, and she reached over for it, her eyes flicking instinctively to the prescription date. It was dated less than a week ago and the prescription was for sixty pills.

Either Cameron had forgotten how to count, or House was short quite a few pills. She looked up at him.

"House . . . ." she said cautiously, her hand resting on his knee.

He grabbed the bottle from her and swallowed the two Vicodin that were in his hand. "I figured you'd be gone by now."

"Would you like me to leave?" she asked, sitting on the bed beside him. He didn't answer, and she watched as he clasped onto his cane and used it to pull a pair of pants towards him."You know . . . ." He slipped the pants on, the right leg first, then the left. " . . . if the Vicodin isn't working enough . . . there's other ways to manage your pain . . . ."

He stood up abruptly, zipping the pants up. "I don't have a pain management problem," he said under his breath as he walked out of his room.

She heard him walking towards his kitchen, his cane thumping and his feet shuffling along with morning stiffness.

He was always lying. To himself and everyone else. He was a liar.

Don't believe what he says, believe what he does.

And she believed that he had successfully gotten her in bed with him twice, both occurrences needing very little manipulation and effort (on both sides).

After getting dressed, she made her way to the kitchen. Standing in the doorway, she watched him silently. He was making a pot of coffee. His pants were wrinkled and his chest was bare. His hair was getting grayer and a little thin, and she didn't have to look to remember that his forehead was generally lined with heavy wrinkles. Although she was actually more than half his age, she realized how he must feel. Or how a man in his position might feel, anyway.

Sleeping with a younger employee—it probably felt like a horribly written soap opera plot to him. The latest shocker on _Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital_.

_I'm supposed to get pregnant and then Stacy comes back_, she thought. _Or one of us dies._

Looking back on the complete irrationality of last night's happenings, she supposed you could call them lovers now. After all, the first one-night stand would never have happened in a lifetime, but two . . . well, that _was_ a lifetime.

A lover is one who loves another, especially one who feels sexual love, and lovers would be a couple in love. The definition of the word "love," however, is relative and vague.

His love was not her love, but their love could be the same.

Of course, that was only if he loved her.

_"You just couldn't love me." _

When she had said that to him, she was certain it was true, but maybe . . . maybe he couldn't love her _then_. Maybe he could love her now? Now that Stacy was out of the way and things had calmed down. Now that she hid her feelings of affection towards him so much better than she had a few months ago—he was probably too stubborn to admit that he liked her then, when she clearly wanted him to, but now that she had backed off and shut him out ever so subtly . . . maybe.

House was breaking down it seemed. Letting her in.

Wilson had once been afraid that she would break House's heart, and now, as she watched him putting a new filter in the coffee pot, she felt the full weight of what a relationship with House would mean. It would mean snide remarks and hurtful comments about her naivete and sense of morals. It would mean whispers and rumors, and it would probably end in one great big explosion of shouts and pain.

But not all pain was bad. Some things are worthwhile. It wasn't going to be a love that was nice and sweet, but it would be a love that was fierce and unspoken.

That wasn't bad, just different and probably a little better.

If House could hear her thoughts, he would say she was too optimistic.

And she was at times. But it was her, and she wasn't going to let House change her. Just like House wouldn't let her change him. Once that was determined and accepted, then things would go smoothly—mutually, almost, with an added benefit of sexual satisfaction and a secret knowledge that they were actually madly in love with each other.

Cameron shook her head, confused by her thoughts. Her head was buzzing with possibilities and paradoxes and uncertainty of what she wanted from House.

Things weren't making sense and usually Cameron hated that. She liked order, clear and concise.

Perhaps House was a way to balance her out, mess up what she had fixed so that she would always have something to fix. He gave her something do.

He was something to live for.

She sighed and left, wanting to get to the hospital on time that morning. She wanted to have a pot of coffee made when he came in.

* * *

His lips turned upward at the ends in a slight smile of authentic gratitude when he waltzed into his office that morning and was greeted by the glorious smell of french vanilla. He had gotten his coffee pot all ready, only to find that he was out of coffee. The words "Thank you" even echoed across his mind, but they were scared of the light and didn't venture out past his throat.

His coffee mug wasn't where it should be, though, and he looked around.

"It's in the sink," said Cameron, reading through their patient's latest test results. She was sitting at the table, a cup of coffee resting by her elbow.

He knitted his brow, wondering how he had missed that.

"Don't worry. It's clean."

He nodded, filling his cup. Cameron's coffee was even better than his own.

He wondered briefly if that was because Cameron was just better at it, or because she was the one who had made it. He decided that it really didn't matter . . . .

The rest of the day flowed remarkably smoothly. There was still a tingly wall of tension between House and Cameron, but it was thinner and infused with a door. Foreman hadn't notice any weird connection between House and Cameron, and Chase was just as oblivious as usual. Things were going fine and House had almost forgotten that he had slept with Cameron twice now.

Cameron came into his office later that afternoon, informing him that he had been right once again and that Mr. What's-his-name would be going home in the morning.

House was having a good day. His leg was even feeling a little less painful.

"His white count is up," she was saying. "We're going to keep him overnight for observation, and he'll be leaving in the morning."

"Good," said House, standing up. She thought he might have been leaving, but he remained standing still. Standing close.

Cameron was standing beside him, her arms limply at her side. Her position was relaxed, a contrast to her usual clenched stance that formed a wall between House and her. She was comfortable, and he could feel the warmth of her body radiating outward, searching for his limbs.

He remembered that, while he was sleeping next to her, she kept him warm—she kept his leg warm, like one of those electric heat pads, only he didn't have to worry about her catching on fire in the middle of the night.

He thought about kissing her, and he wasn't sure what surprised him more: the fact that he had even thought about kissing her in the first place or the fact that, a second later, he acted on that impulse.

He leaned forward, his nose bumping into hers. His stubble rubbed against her chin, and his lips were just barely touching hers. She felt her cheeks getting warm and the glass walls felt like they were pressing in on her, shoving her even closer to House.

She liked that feeling and leaned a little closer . . . and then jumped back when Wilson interrupted them by rudely opening the door and saying "Oh!" rather loudly.

Wilson was about to back out of the room and come back later, when Cameron said, "That's alright, Dr. Wilson. I was just leaving."

She walked briskly past him, her head down. As soon as the door closed, Wilson said "You're opening up to her."

"I'm opening my pants . . . ." replied House, sitting back down in his chair. He pretended to look around for his Game Boy, hoping he could avoid any prying questions from Wilson. He was generally pretty good at hiding his feelings, but there was something about Wilson that made him blurt things out at times.

He realized that Cameron also had that affect on him from time to time.

Wilson smirked knowingly. "You love her don't you?"

House shut the drawer he was searching through and opened the one below it. "I love the sex."

Wilson laughed annoyingly. "Don't ruin this, House. She could be good for you."

He stopped shuffling through his desk drawers. She was good for him, he knew that. Perhaps she was too good. "I know," he replied.

"She cares for you House."

House nodded, looking out of the window behind his desk.

"You should ask her out."

House smirked. After sex, a date with Cameron seemed trivial. "And you should have stopped sleeping with other women who weren't your wife. Maybe she wouldn't have wanted a divorce."

Wilson nodded, as if expecting a jab at his own love life. He was used to it. "Just don't screw this up," he said, making his way out of House's office.

House sat and pondered on ways to "screw this up." The sure fire way, naturally, was to be himself. Then again, Cameron was, in her own mad way, in love with him—the him she knew, which was really just him. No double persona for him.

So, the one way to keep this relationship going, was to be him.

He wondered briefly if he'd ever get bored with Cameron.

He frowned and rested his head on his cane.

* * *

That night, he ended up at her place. They had a pattern going—her place, his place—it only seemed logical to leave the hospital and end up in front of her door. She seemed to expect him and let him in with a smile. 

Now that he was sitting on her couch, a drink in his hand, he felt awkward and old, out of place in her sunny, yellow living room.

She sat down next to him. "I'm not going to expect you to change," she told him. "I'm not expecting you to be someone else."

"Yeah, you've said that before." He sat the glass down on the side table and rested his cane against the arm of the couch. "This isn't going to be easy."

"I know."

He took a deep breath and turned to her. His eyes were large, his pupils dilated in a look of sadness or fear, as if he knew he would hurt her, but his lips were turned up in a smile. And she smiled back.

_end_


End file.
